Commercial processing of freshly-killed fowl requires a number of steps beginning with defeathering the carcass of the bird and typically ending with the cleaned carcass being cut into parts suitable for cooking, or with the whole carcass being preserved for cooking. Included in the steps of commercially processing such birds are removal of the viscera and other parts to prevent spoilage and infection of the carcass. These processing steps in commercial poultry-processing operations are subject to governmental regulation and on-site inspection for health and sanitary purposes.
Removal of fecal matter from the intestines of freshly-killed birds is necessary at an early stage in processing the bird carcasses. Fecal matter remaining in the vent or intestine when the vent or viscera are removed is likely to become dislodged and fall onto or within the carcass, creating a possible health hazard and leading to rejection of that carcass by the health inspectors.
One prior approach to removing fecal matter involves squeezing or kneading the large intestine and cloaca of the birds to force fecal matter from the bird. This is usually done manually, and cannot effectively be accomplished at a rate consistent with the desired operation of bird conveyors in modern poultry processing facilities. Another approach to the problem involves the use of a suction probe inserted into the vent of the bird. Loose fecal matter within the vent is supposedly withdrawn by suction applied to the probe. Suction vent cleaners of the prior art have not been particularly satisfactory, however. Such probes often cannot remove all the loose fecal matter, due to the absence of air within the vent to create an air flow for entraining fecal matter into the suction probe which itself occupies the vent at the time. Efforts to overcome this problem by increasing the amount of suction can actually suck out part of the intestine itself, damaging the bird and preventing clean cutting and removal of the vent as a normal subsequent operation in processing.
It has been proposed to inject a flow of water into the vent of a bird before applying suction to remove water and fecal matter. This proposed arrangement is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,137,031 to Ine. No commercial application of this proposal is known to the present inventors, and it is believed the nonacceptance of that proposal results from concerns that injecting water or other liquid into the vent might rupture the intestine of the bird, thereby spoiling the carcass with fecal mattter spilled from the ruptured intestine.